On a recent visit to Peru, a man making sashimi stopped China Chilcano head chef Carlos Delgado in his tracks. At a seafood market, a vendor was filleting fish, then putting it back together by laying thin slices on the bone. Naturally, Delgado decided to bring that serving style back to José Andrés’s Peruvian restaurant in Penn Quarter.
Delgado is leading two seatings for a six-course chef’s dinner ($120 per person) tonight, which marks the first time he’s put together a family-style meal at the restaurant. He’ll serve the sashimi using hamachi imported from Japan.
He’s also considering using local Chesapeake rockfish for a battered and fried jalea preparation, which draws from Criollo cuisine, a Creole style popular with home cooks that blends influences from Spain, Africa, and indigenous people. Chunks of fish are fried and reassembled with the head and spine along with leche de tigre mayo, Peruvian salsa, yucca, and cilantro.
The chef wanted to put the fish on dramatic display, so he says he’ll filet fish tableside for ceviche. An example of that is a red snapper jaladito, in which thin slices of snapper are dressed with aji amarillo (a fruity pepper imported from Peru), leche de tigre, choclo (corn), and cilantro.
The theme of the dinner is Criollo cuisine, so it may also include causa Limena, a towering salad based on mashed potatoes, along with lomo saltado and a ají de gallina, a chicken stew made with fresh cheese, pecans, and rice.
In addition to tonight’s tasting dinner, Delgado has added whole fish dishes to the summer menu at China Chilcano. One of two examples listed on the menu is a Criollo-style macho (onion, tomato, scallion, aji amarillo, ajipanca spice, white wine, pisco, cream). The other whole fish dish listed is the chifero, a Nikkei (Japanese-Peruvian) style with woodear mushrooms, scallion, soy bean sprouts, bok choy, chile tamarind sauce, and oyster.
Delgado has a lifetime of beachfront meals to draw upon for inspiration. He grew up in Callao, the Pacific port district in the Peruvian capital of Lima. He says the variety of fish he eats when he goes home — something he tries to do at least twice a year — is unlimited.
“Usually you ate what was caught today,” Delgado says. “That comes out to the dinner table, and you eat it as many ways as you possibly can. ... That experience to me is priceless.”
China Chilcano opened more than four years ago. Nazca Mochica opened on P Street NW about a year later, and Miami import Pisco y Nazca landed farther west in Dupont last August. La Limena in Rockville has been a longtime, favorite, too.
Despite the influx of Peruvian restaurants, Delagado says a big part of his job is still educating people on the diverse styles of the cuisine. He frequently finds himself explaining the roots of Criollo, Nikkei, and Chifa — or Chinese influenced — cuisines.
“People still think Peruvian food is just rotisserie chicken and maybe ceviche,” he says.